


A Game of Magic

by TrollJegus



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Multi, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7973122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrollJegus/pseuds/TrollJegus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dweller scoffed at your coarse language. “Your name, BattleMage, what is it?” you narrowed your eyes at her and thought for a moment that you wouldn't answer her. Yeah, you should have do that, you should have blast her and walk away, report her to the inquisition and call it a night. But of course like the proverbial fuckass you were you didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game of Magic

You were never meant for the life of a battlemage. The continuous expectation from the caste, the constant competition with the other castes, the everyday reminders that you would have to join the Red Stewards when you came of age, the pressure to represent not only yourself, but your people and every other organization, group, or other caste that decided to side with yours. The responsibility of being the first from your caste to receive the title of battlemage. Some days it got to be too much to handle, and you would ran away, deep into the woods where werebeasts were rumored to hunt.

It was on one of these excursions against sense that you first met her in a forest clearing: she was away from her tower, a grave offense in and of itself; however she also had the vestige of a Deep Dweller, banished from the surface except for the rare slave or two. You should have been disgusted, the Dwellers were an abomination against magic, their bodies tainted with the oldest and most primal forces known to the horrorterrors centuries ago.

For a long moment you stood, fear locking your joints. They may have been abominations, but by the Forces they were strong abominations. While your body tried to re-learn movement your brain took it’s time looking over the creature standing in the clearing. It was tall, even for a Dweller, who were naturally tall (how that piece of evolution worked out you’ll never fucking know.) It’s horns made it look even taller, and was proof that it was like you, mage-born.

“Who goes there?!” Your head whipped up to the figure’s face, and met it’s eyes which were trained directly at you. You wish you could say that you drew your wand and cast a battle spell, bellowing all the while at the audacity a dweller had to challenge your authority in conclave territory. You didn’t. You turned around and ran, jumping and scrambling through the foliage. After an appropriate hoofbeast-caught-in-glarebeams expression.

You didn’t look back, but you could hear the Dweller gaining on you, your short legs probably weren’t the best set to win a race against a Dweller, but you didn’t need to outrun the Dweller if you could outsmart it. You drew your red oak wand and summoned as much Magic as you possibly could, before biting your lip hard enough to draw the source of your control. Blood. 

The copper taste quickly melted away and was replaced by a sweet candy taste as your body recognized the tinge of magic in your blood. You whipped around and flicked your wrist out, releasing a wave of pure magic that slammed into the Dweller and tossed it into a tree. You readied another spell, pushing away the mental fatigue that came whenever you used Magic to hurt a living being. 

You slowly creeped toward it, where it was prone on the ground. No surface or Sea folk could have remained conscious after a blow like that, save for your freakish Noble friend, but you could never be certain with a Dweller, little was known about them, even after the great war, where they were defeated and banished. When you got close enough you knelt down next to the Dweller, not lowering your wand, but you reached down and touched it’s neck, where a Surface dweller’s pulse would be, but with your gloves on you weren’t able to feel anything. 

The Dweller’s eyes were closed, so you took a chance and took off your right glove and felt for the Dweller’s pulse. When your fingerpad touched it’s dark skin it’s eyes shot open, and it’s hand flicked out closing around your wrist, it’s grip hard enough that it hurt. “What the fuck?!” You flinched back and landed right on your ass, just as your forehead began to burn. If you were not closing your eyes from the mind-numbing fuckfest of pain that was your head at that moment you would have noticed that a bright yellow light was emanating from the Dweller’s center. 

Slowly the pain diminished and you were able to stand up with your hand on a nearby tree for balance. You panted under your breath, and looked up to see the Dweller staring at you with a look that said… well, you really didn’t know what that look said. It looked just like the ‘Personal assistant’ of the Serket’s matriarch whenever she didn’t want you to know what she was thinking, which was basically every second of every day. The Dweller recovered from whatever happened between the two of you before you did. “....name.”

You looked up and rose an eyebrow, the urge to blast the Dweller with another blast of magic tempting you, but you knew that you’d pass out from that kind of fatigue. So you settled for glaring at her. “Fucking what?”

The Dweller scoffed at your coarse language. “Your name, BattleMage, what is it?” you narrowed your eyes at her and thought for a moment that you wouldn't answer her. Yeah, you should have do that, you should have blast her and walk away, report her to the inquisition and call it a night. But of course like the proverbial fuckass you were you didn’t.

“Vantas. High BattleMage of The Suffering, regent to the Conclave, Champion of Kankri the Lesser, BattleMage apprentice to Latula of Pyrope .” You rattle off the political bull as if it had been drilled into you by the Red Stewards, oh, actually it was. The Dweller stood tall and in a single stride it stood directly in front of you, looking down at you. 

“Not your title, those are thrust upon everything on the surface and hold nothing of the person who carries them, what is the name that your friends address you with?” The Dweller looked different up close, you could see the the slight discoloration around it’s neck that meant scars. 

You frowned, after all the Dweller made a fair point, in your world most people were only really known by their title, ‘baker’, ‘soldier’, ‘mage’, all things had titles, but no title truly captured the essence of the person attached to it. Shaking your head you cleared the thoughts from your mind. “You first, Dweller.” There. That conveyed enough disdain to mask how tired you felt.

“Very fair, I am Kanaya.” The Dweller no longer slouched against the tree, instead it stood tall, it’s stance and pose regal, if a bit intimidating.  


“I am Karkat Vantas. I already told you what I am, but what about you? Are you a rogue Dweller? An escaped slave perhaps? And what were those lights that appeared when I touched you?” As the words came out of your mouth you instantly felt silly for saying them. There was no way this being was a servant or slave, the very air it breathed was that of a benevolent master, and you had to fight to keep from bowing.

It’s laugh sounded both like bells and stream water at once, and it touched a place in you that you hadn’t had a chance to examine in a long time: your heart. “You have great luck, Karkat, for your questions have but one answer, few questions ever do. I am neither a rogue nor one of the sevik. In terms of titles I am Maryam. Regent to the Conclave, Champion of Porrim the Greater, and Seamstress of Antivvan.”

The Dweller made a small curtsey, a smile brightening it’s eyes. “And as of about a minute ago, and a spectacular display of light, soulmate to one Karkat Vantas.”

**Author's Note:**

> The placement of the lights and the colors actually matter and I did a lot of research on them. The castes, and each title also matters, as well as the terms used such as Antivaan, though that will come up in future chapters.


End file.
